


allegory of nothing

by emollience



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Exes to Lovers, F/M, Mutual Pining, i swear there's a happy ending for my own sanity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-08-09 09:09:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16446950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emollience/pseuds/emollience
Summary: We recoil from the star’s light,they tell him.And so we build mazes.*no one ever really warned keith how to navigate working with an ex.





	allegory of nothing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> honestly i'm hungover as hell so any and all typos? will be fixed later

> remember the way your hand curled around  
>  mine. prehistoric claw or talon, i don’t want  
>  to know the difference so i deny your nature.  
>  i want to keep you quiet and your mouth  **shut.**  
>  your face twists as you turn away. you look  
>  like the word anguish. ---- [awfulmachinations](http://awfulmachinations.tumblr.com/post/165742621483/allegory-of-nothing)

 

The messages Allura sends Keith’s way are brisk and to the point. Mission updates, reports on rebuilding efforts, copies of new treaties; no fluff in between strict fact, nothing to hint at a personal relationship. They all end the same: a short and prompt _Best regards, Prime Minister Allura of New Altea_.  If anyone else read them they’d commend the level of professionalism maintained between the two former paladins.

No one does, obviously, so he fixates a little too long on every _best regards_ tacked onto the end of each transmission.

Rebuilding the Blade of Marmora keeps him busy enough. Refugees clap him on the back, and Kolivan learns to ease the tension in his shoulders around Keith long enough for him to learn finally learn about his mother’s father, and other mixed Galras join the ranks in a steady stream, eyes on him, looking to him and only him.

“We’re more trustworthy with a leader similar to the general population” Kolivan tells him. “You’re an inspiration to them.”

Keith never exactly wanted to collect titles and ranks. Head of Voltron. First Lieutenant Kogane. Leader of the Blade of Marmora. They seem to fall onto his lap, unwarranted gifts without a return receipt.

“You’ve earned them,” Allura had told him more than once, hands cradling his face or cheek pressed against his chest, always a point of contact tethering them together.

Space is infinite and endless and harrowing, surrounded by people that breathe delight and wonder at his existence, the distraction what he wants and needs except the stamp of her name continues to act as sign pointing back to her.

 

*

 

Qeesher exists beyond the Karthulian System. Its cities are chrome towers, all interlocked and connected. _We recoil from the star’s light_ , the president tells him. Their words are tailor spun silk in Keith’s head, more feeling and context than language. _And so we build mazes_.

The native species, the Axizai, accept Keith’s presence with the four sewn-shut eyelids on their faces curved up at the corners in an imitation of a smile.

 _Your ally awaits at our city’s center,_ they told him.

When he enters the room, Hunk slams into him.

“You’re taller!” He holds Keith at arm's length. They’re at eye level now, Keith realizes with a jolt. A faint five o’clock shadow covers Hunk’s jaw. “Man, it’s been _forever._ ”

“Only a few months.”

“Not on Earth, buddy. More than a year, I’m pretty sure.”

“Oh,” he says, voice small. “Sorry.”

Hunk squeezes Keith’s shoulders. “Just try to keep a little better track. It’s hard with all of us so spread out.”

“Yeah.” Keith steps back, rubbing at the back of his neck. “It’s just been hectic.”

“Good thing we’re here together then. I dunno about the others, though. I haven’t seen Lance in two months. Pidge even longer.” Hunk leads him towards the blinking monitors at the center of the room. “I’m mostly on the Atlas with Shiro and Coran nowadays.”

“Shiro doing okay?”

“Oh yeah, man. He made Major General a few months back, actually. You should’ve seen his face when Allura showed up at the ceremony --” He cuts off. He looks back at Keith, eyes wide. “Uh, sorry.”

Keith crosses his arms. “What for?”

“It’s just -- well, I, uh, I’m not sure,” he scratches at his temple, “how fine you are with the Allura situation.”

“I’m good.”

Hunk stares at him, nose crinkled. “You sure?”

“Yes.”

“It’s just,” Hunk starts, “she said the same thing, but you don’t sound like you’re good.”

“I sound great. Can we talk about the mission now?”

Hunk drops it. Keith’s skin still itches hot.

 

*

 

“You broke up,” Shiro echoed.

Behind him, Adam stiffened at his desk. “I’m...gonna head out,” he said, collecting his books and papers. Even with all the physical therapy, his limp still tilted left. Shiro watched him go, mouth twisted in a frown.

It was only after the door shut with a punctuative click that Shiro looked back at the camera. Even with light years between them, his concern bordered palpable in the air.

“I don’t understand.”

“It just...didn’t work out,” Keith said. Kosmo pressed his snout against his leg and waited till he carded a hand through his fur. “The distance. It’s for the better.”

 _It’s for the better,_ she had said. Her stare never wavered, even with her eyes rimmed red. The distance stretched long and deep, galaxies separating the two of them, unspooling faster than he could collect.

“But are you okay?”

“I’ll be fine.”

 

*

 

Those loyal to the old regime under Zarkon’s rule hide in the shadows the government’s cabinet, and so does he. He sits. He waits. He observes. Hunk builds. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knows Pidge would be better suited at digging secret intel, but Hunk eases laughter from Keith that escapes him in bursts, almost as if forgotten.

He learns of the seventy-five hour long days and fourteen hour long nights; keeps track of the setting and rising white dwarf star in relation to Earth.  

On the seventeenth day he walks into the shared room assigned to him and Hunk, already tugging off his hood and unclipping his chest plate when he catches a spot of shimmering white from his peripheral.

He freezes.

“Hello, Keith.”

She stands by his desk. Her dress pools around her ankles, the same shade as her markings -- like those of her cheeks, and the curling and branching patterns on her arms and back he once traced with his lips and tongue.

“Hey,” he manages, somehow, without the single syllable cracking. He doesn’t know whether to step forward or run back, his instincts pulling every which way. He remains rooted. “No one told me you were here.”

“My presence won’t be announced until the session tomorrow,” she says. Her hair’s longer. Whiter. No longer silver like when she first awoke in Lance’s arms. The single braid brushes mid thigh from where it’s slung over her shoulder. “President Eyugliss wants to surprise the cabinet; see if that rattles any possible sympathizers.”

“Right.” He clears his throat. His fingers twitch against the chest plate’s clips. “Makes sense.”

“I just wanted to let you know before the session. So that you’re aware of the plan.”

“A message could’ve worked too.”

Her lips twitch into a smile. “I suppose.”

A golden necklace encircles the elegant line of her neck, a bright red pendant sparkling at center. Keith feels underdressed, his hair knotted into a haphazard bun against the back of his neck, his suit unpolished and scratched.

“I, uh,” he jabs a thumb in the general direction of the bathroom, “I gotta get ready for bed. But we can brief each other in the morning?”

She nods. Smooths at her skirts. “I’ll come find you then. Rest well.”

The door slides shut behind her. Keith clenches his eyes shut and lets out a shaky exhale.

 

*

 

Their first kiss happened in his father’s old shack a year after the war. Keith watched Allura run her fingers over the back of the couch, trace the red strings on his long forgotten board, wander across the small space till she stopped where he stood leaning against the doorframe.

“How long were you here?” she asked. The scar bisecting a single white brow glinted in the fading sunset.

He told her about the year post-Garrison, post-Shiro’s disappearance. The long desert rides on his father’s bike and the buzzing so strong and frequent it led him to the cave, with its markings and clues, the one thing that felt sure. That felt right.

Her facial markings flickered bright.

“It led me to you.”

She pressed a hand to his chest and kissed him. She pulled away, her breath warm against his lips, and then his hand tucked behind her neck and drew her back.

 

*

 

“I didn’t know she’d be here,” Hunk punctuates hours later with a slam of the door. “I swear. I would’ve told you if I had. She didn’t tell me anything, and neither did Shiro when he sent me out here, and oh god, Keith, was it bad? Was it awkward? She said you guys were fine, but, well, you know Allura -- she’s literally been stabbed before and said she was doing great so I don’t trust that --”

Keith rubs at his eyes with the heels of his palms. “Hunk. We’re fine. Seriously.”

The mattress sinks at the foot of the bed where Hunk sits. “No offense, man, but I don’t believe you either.”

“Then the conversation’s over, isn’t it?” He rolls to his side, back facing Hunk. He stares at the wall, long and hard, till Hunk gets up and prepares himself for bed, till the lights shut off once more and there’s no sound save for the whirr of oxygen through the ventilation system and Hunk’s faint breathing. He stares. He thinks of the line of Allura’s jaw; the silver buttons of her dress trailing from the flat plane of her stomach to just below the red pendant at her throat; that single strand of white hair loose and curling at the corner of her mouth.

He stares till the windows brighten with artificial sunrise.

 

*

 

The days drag. Hunk calculates that around three months have passed on Earth.

“Maybe four, considering time dilation.”

Two months with Allura beside Keith session after session, a different dress each day, but never a crown, only her earrings and necklace. She sits tall and regal, for all appearances neutral to the ministers’ ongoings, except he catches the quick downturn twitch of the corner of her lips, the subtle sigh when the squabbling escalates to nearly deafening levels.

They always leave together. She never takes his arm. He never offers it.

He’s twenty-eight earth years old. He should be better at this, except he never dated at the Garrison, and then he secluded himself to a year of sweltering heat and mysterious caves, and then it was battles and war and -- Allura. He thinks Shiro would know how to navigate working with someone you once thought you’d spend the rest of your life with, except maybe not because there was Adam and there is Adam and there will only ever be Adam.

“Rest well, Keith,” Allura says every night for fifteen nights at her door, and every night for fifteen nights he watches it shut with a resounding click.

Except today she settles a hand on the crook of his elbow.

“Would you join me for a drink?”

He hesitates.

The inside of her room is just as plain and simple as his and Hunk’s except for the clutter: the silk yellow shawl slung over her desk chair and a pair of pink flats tossed in a corner and a shimmery white nightgown spread on the foot of the bed and books towering in clusters throughout the floor. He steps around them, following her to the small kitchen where she pulls out a metallic violet drink.

He groans.

“God, that almost killed Lance.”

She snorts and shuts the drawer with her hip. She collects the glasses. “Lance nearly killed Lance. I _told_ him it’s too strong for humans undiluted and he still insisted on taking that shot on its own.”

“Remember when Hunk started crying because he thought Lance would puke to death?”

“And Pidge tried to shove bread down his throat when he finally stopped.”

“I don’t think Shiro ever forgave you for letting Pidge get plastered.”

She laugh and hands him his glass. “She was _twenty-two_. That was hardly her first drink.”

“Yeah, but she still looks twelve.”

“Untrue. I saw her a few phoebs ago back on New Altea and she’s definitely at least fourteen, now.”

He almost spits out his drink, but somehow manages to keep that small bit of dignity. “I’ll tell her you said that.”

“Traitor.”

Somewhere between his second and third glass they wind up sitting on the floor, legs crossed and knees touching. The yellow shawl rests soft and easy on Keith’s shoulders, and the sleeves of Allura’s dress are pushed up to her elbows, revealing the spiraling pink markings ending at her wrists.

 _Alteans only showed these to loved ones_ , she told him, once, when they laid tangled together on the small twin bed in her Atlas bedroom. She rolled up the sleeves of her nightgown and let him run his fingers over the flickering bioluminescent markings. They were thinner than skin. Softer. He brushed his lips over the curling end at the jutting bone of her wrist and they glowed brighter, stronger.

His mouth goes dry. He tugs the shawl tight around his shoulders.

“You should visit New Altea,” she tells him, and his heartbeat throbs loud and fast in his ears. “It’s been so long.”

“Not that long.”

She tilts her head at him. A white curl rests against the corner of her mouth. “More than two deca-phoebs, I believe.”

He stares at their touching knees, skin separated by suit and dress alike. “This isn’t a good idea.”

“What isn’t?”

“Talking about -- that. The last time.”

He looks up. She meets his scowl with one of her own.

“We don’t have to,” she says. “Although I should be able to tell my friend I’ve missed him.”

The tips of his fingers are warm and tingling. And he thinks of every _best regards_ signed at the end of every correspondence since he left New Altea and almost reaches for her hand.

“I needed time,” comes out, instead.

Maybe in another reality that’d be cue for closing the distance between them. He remembers the soft press of her mouth against his; the brush of her hands over his arms and can imagine a reality where they kiss and then part ways to allow for more the next day.

He pushes himself up; offers a hand and helps her rise from the floor. She curls up on her bed still in her dress and shoes, eyes shut as he pulls a blanket over her.

He’s halfway out the door when she says, "So did I."

 


End file.
